Last Wednesday was a historic weather event in Iowa.

Not only was it recording setting daytime highs across the state, but five tornadoes were confirmed to have happened. Three alone were in Greene County and one of the hardest hit communities was the City of Paton. Paton Mayor Steve Burrell tells Raccoon Valley Radio the EF-2 tornado left in its wake 20 downed power poles, roofs were torn off of the city shed and Bauer Built Manufacturing, along with widespread tree damage and trees tangled in power lines. However, Burrell shares a silver lining in the devastating the town endured.

“Well really the community of Paton they just come together so well and everybody helps out, (including) the fire department, Landus (Cooperative) come to help, John Deere employees coming to help, the bars, 209 (Main Restaurant). It’s just such a big family up there. Everybody does everything for anybody and if anybody needs help, we’ll get them help. It’s been great, the response to this.”

Governor Kim Reynolds toured several damaged areas of Greene County on Friday and remarked on the fact that the situation could’ve been worse, like that of what happened in Kentucky earlier this month. She commented on Iowans always having the ability to come together in the aftermath of any storm where damage happened.

“I see it every time, a community steps up, and they get on these farmsteads, and they kick in, and they help get the debris cleaned up. (They) get the houses buttoned down and as close as they can to being back to normal, until they can start to really do the repairs that need to be done. But Iowans are resilient, the tenacity, and the determination, and just the spirit to help each other come back. That’s what I love, especially, well I see it all over, but you just tend to see it more in rural Iowa.”      

Reynolds applauds the efforts of the Iowa Department of Transportation, Iowa Department of Homeland Security, Iowa Department of Public Service and local emergency managers for getting information out before severe weather happened and she credits learning from last year’s derecho storm that the National Weather Service has now labeled Wednesday storm a derecho.